Nintendo's History at E3: 2010

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Our final look back at Nintendo's presentations ends with a bang. Nintendo 3DS, Zelda, Kid Icarus... what an awesome show.

By Richard George & Lucas M. Thomas

For some, it's a simple show. For others, a mildly curious press event. But for Nintendo fans, each year's E3 Expo is like Christmas morning – a magical time of shocks, surprises and eager anticipation as we await that next new announcement.

It's an altogether unique experience for the longtime Nintendo faithful, and as this year's E3 2011 approaches we're turning back the page for a bit of reflection on E3s past. Which years did Nintendo knock it out of the park? Which ones would we rather forget ever happened? And what, if anything, can the past decade's worth of expo showings help us to predict about what we're about to see this year?

We've spent two weeks diving to uncover the answers, focusing on one year each day for 10 weekdays straight. Last week we kicked things off with five days of coverage, looking back on the E3 expos of 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. This week we've been keeping things rolling, as Monday we shared our memories of E3 2006 and Tuesday traveled back to 2007. Wednesday then held the horrors of 2008 and yesterday the redemptive 2009. And, today, our final installment. Here's a look back at E3 2010.

The time span between E3 2009 and last year's 2010 expo wasn't the strongest 12 months the DS or Wii had ever seen, but it wasn't the worst either -- both systems saw the release of a respectable number of new, major games even as the fans following them could tell that age was catching up with both the handheld and the console.

The DS had mostly a year of sequels and downloads, as new installments in established series like The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story headlined 2009's holiday system for the handheld. Unexpected E3 '09 award winner Scribblenauts also got its retail release, and deservedly sold a great deal more copies than you would've guessed for a third-party DS project -- word of mouth had been building up hype for the game ever since E3 ended, resulting in a big payoff.

The DSi XL, complete with jumbo stylus.

DSiWare, which had only been weeks old at E3 '09, began to find its footing with a growing library of portable downloadable games (and some ill-advised "apps"). The DSi Shop struggled to pull much attention to itself with little promotional effort from Nintendo, but got a bit of a boost when yet another revision of the DS hardware was revealed in October '09 -- the super-sized DSi XL.

The Wii endured another fairly thin holiday season, with only New Super Mario Bros. Wii to really carry the console -- luckily, it was a great enough game to handle much of that burden. Things then got better for Wii owners early in 2010, when Super Mario Galaxy 2 unexpectedly shipped to stores in advance of E3 '10, instead of being held for after the show. That got us wondering just what Nintendo might have planned to show off in L.A. instead, but then we got a big heads-up about that too.

The 3DS. Nintendo revealed the new handheld's existence in a terse, simple press release in March of 2010 -- not Nintendo's style at all, but many guessed the company was afraid its existence would be leaked to the press if they didn't confirm it first. That meant a big surprise for E3 2010 was no longer going to be quite as shocking -- but getting our hands and eyes on the supposed "glasses free" 3D had us hyped even more.

The Big Announcements

Nintendo wasted absolutely no time getting into the good stuff with its 2010 press conference, debuting a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword right out of the gates. We had learned that the game was in development in 2008. In 2009 we got a single piece of concept art. But now, finally, here was the game in motion. We saw Link's new art-style, a sort-of fusion between Wind Waker's cel-shading and Twilight Princess' more realistic take on the character. We saw new items in action, and classic items used in new ways. We got the name -- Skyward Sword -- which we didn't previously know. It was a wonderful way to begin.

Some supporting titles quickly followed, with the athletic compilation action of Mario Sports Mix and Wii Party. Third-party studios got into the mix with titles like Just Dance 2, a sequel to Ubisoft's unexpected hit from the previous holiday season. Then the full-on Wii-exclusive remake of N64 classic GoldenEye 007. And then Epic Mickey, yet another Wii-exclusive that sought to reboot Disney's classic mouse with a bit more grit and attitude.

We got our first look at Skyward's style.

Some Wii fans were a little worried heading into this event, figuring the console didn't have much left to give. But by this point in the event, things were already looking up -- and Nintendo was just getting started.

The Big N volleyed out two more major franchise announcements that no one predicted -- Kirby's Epic Yarn, the first home console Kirby game in ages, and Donkey Kong Country Returns, developed by Retro Studios. This was when we longtime fans started feelings like kids locked overnight in a candy store, and yet the day still wasn't done. We hadn't even seen the 3DS yet.

"Sorry to keep you waiting!"

And then we did -- introduced by none other than Kid freaking Icarus. You've got to understand, there's a core group of longtime Nintendo fans that have been clamoring for a Kid Icarus sequel for two decades. Seriously, 20 years straight. To finally see it was happening, to finally know it was on the way, was a magical moment.

And the fact that it was serving as the flagship for the 3DS was just icing on the cake. Kid Icarus Uprising looked just as good as a Wii game, if not better, and let everyone watching know the new handheld was going to be no slouch in graphics prowess. Then the details of the hardware filtered in -- what it looked like, its 3D photography capability, its download capabilities. A laundry list of great software in production rolled out, like Metal Gear, Mario Kart and Professor Layton. This was beginning to look like one of the best Nintendo conferences ever.

A glance inside Nintendo's pre-show event.

And then, to top it all off, over one hundred 3DS units then appeared in the hands of models walking out into the audience to share the new tech face-to-face. What a great end to a great, great press conference filled with truly Big Announcements.